if the world don't claim you
by Medie
Summary: she finds hope burned into the side of a barn.


** title:** if the world don't claim you  
**author: **m  
**rating:** pg13  
**word count: **1189  
**disclaimer: **no own smallville, supergirl, you know the drill.  
**pairing: **none  
**summary: **she finds hope burned into the side of a barn.  
**author's note: **for my Kara Zor-El claim over at **au100**. Cobbled together her name from a few different DCU sources. And yeah, I've written Supergirl in Smallville before but I wanted to try a new version for this challenge. She turned out pretty good all things considered. Title comes from the Michelle Wright song "Nobody's girl"

* * *

Hope burned into the side of a barn.

-

When Lee Donovan sees her native language charred into a Kansas barn, her heart gives a thump in her chest and she _knows_. He's here.

She packs her stuff and leaves Midvale behind.

-

Lee's always known the truth, remembers enough of Argo City and what happened to realize it's no dream and her abilities no fluke. The memories are fragmented and disjointed but she knows who her parents were, can almost see their faces, and she remembers the ship where a disembodied voice told her of Earth and her lost cousin Kal-El.

She also knows her parents are dead, just like her adoptive ones. Nobody's coming for her and what she never did understand is why she keeps on waiting. She thinks, maybe, she's waiting for Kal-El but she barely remembers him. He might not know her at all.

Life's not so bad at the orphanage, she's got friends like Richard and the matron's kind of awesome but she doesn't tell them the truth. She can't tell anyone where she's really from and not just because they'll think she's nuts. It's safer that they don't know and she prays nobody tries to adopt her. Earth's a nice place and her adoptive parents were nice; she doesn't want to make anyone else live with this kind of secret.

It's bad enough she's hiding the ship in the basement.

-

She sneaks back later to move the ship, hears the matron talking to Richard about her. She feels sorry for them but she always knew she'd have to leave. They're safer this way.

-

Kal-El's alive and the barn with hope on it? It's his. She gets a job in town at a coffee shop, watches him for a while. He looks like she remembers her uncle looking like and her heart does that weird thump again. Lee's never been sick a day in her life but she feels what she thinks might be nausea when he turns and looks at her.

She sighs in relief when all he does is smile politely and ask for the boss.

Later, she finds out that his name is Clark Kent and he lives with his parents on their farm outside town.

This time, the feeling she gets is envy.

-

When the girl calling herself Kara shows up, Lee gets mad. That bitch stole her name.

-

She's not ready, she hesitates and everything blows up. Literally. She doesn't know Chloe Sullivan well but she knows her well enough. She likes her. The aftermath of the explosion brings the name Luthor on the wind and Lee wonders.

With an idea what happened to Clark (not to mention the poser) she starts looking around. Might as well make herself useful while her country cousin takes his time out.

Lee tries not to snicker at him, she mostly succeeds.

-

Her poking around the Luthor family leads her to find Chloe. Her abilities can be a pain but they do have their uses and sneaking into a girl's bedroom after dark is one of them.

A hand on Chloe's mouth keeps her from alerting the guards and Lee leans in to whisper, "It's me, from the Talon? I kinda need to talk to you, so, uh don't scream or anything all right?"

Chloe nods, Lee pulls her hand away and promptly gets hit in the jaw. She thinks she probably had that coming so she steps back and waits for the other girl to let loose with the expected barrage of questions. When they come (who are you really? how'd you find me? what the hell were you thinking?") she answers the easy ones in short order. As for "who are you really?" she takes a breath and admits, "You might want to sit down for this one."

She almost expects Chloe to hit her again.

-

"So, you're Kara, the _real_ Kara?" If Clark looks dubious she can't blame him. Maybe Chloe breaking the news might have been better but she's recuperating from her latest kidnapping (and how screwed up is _this_ town anyway? She thinks Gotham and Bludhaven are starting to look like gated communities in comparison) so that's out.

"As far as I know," she nods and rubs sweaty palms against her jeans. "Believe me; I don't know who the hell she was supposed to be but…" She grins wry. "I guess a drifter waitress with no prospects to speak of isn't quite so glamorous but…" She pauses to shrug. "What you see is what you get."

He flushes and shakes his head. "No, it's not like _that_, it's…" He pauses, frowning and she wants to laugh again. He's so painfully earnest she can't believe he's real. It's almost surreal, the only family she's got in the world (galaxy even) and he's fresh out of Mayberry.

Or, he would be, except Mayberry's a little short on aliens and crazy mutant people.

"Say something, Smallville," Lee prods, looking up at the horizon. "You're starting to give me a complex here and believe me, I've got enough of those to last us both a lifetime."

He laughs, it looks good on him. She thought she was the dour, serious type but she looks like Pollyanna compared to him. "I'm glad you here, really." It's not much but its okay, she can work with that. "And…" he grins.

"I'm not a pod person?"

He looks chagrined that she dared say it but asks, "Would you be insulted if I said yes?"

-

"You can stay, you know," Clark says the morning she decides to move on; she catches the look in his eye and smiles affectionately.

"I'll be _back_, dummy," she assures. "I'm just…" Lee pushes a hand through her hair and sighs. "I spent my life hiding in an orphanage because I was afraid that if I got too close to someone, if I had a family, then they'd die just like before." Just like her birth parents died, just like her adoptive parents died, part of Lee still wonders if it's her fault they're gone crazy or no. She waves a hand at the horizon. "Except it's not about that, right? They didn't just send us here because they wanted us to survive, we're supposed to have _lives_ and I can't just help myself to yours."

He nods, reluctant. "Promise to visit?" There's undisguised hope in his voice but beneath it a familiar vulnerability. He's afraid of the same things that she is and that really doesn't surprise her.

'Must be genetic,' she thinks with a mental laugh. "Yeah, I'll visit," she affirms. "Where else am I going to spend Christmas? _Bludhaven_?" Her incredulity makes him match her grin with one of his own. "Besides, we've got all those powers to test out don't we and, personally, I so think I can kick your ass."

Clark snorts. "Not a chance, K…Lee."

She grins. "Whichever, _cousin_."

-

When she's far enough out of town, Lee takes to the air and circles back over Smallville one more time.

Yeah, a visit or two sounds good.


End file.
